Enter the Killer Robots: The Ukrainian Forging the Future of Warfare
The Global Profile Enter the Killer Robots: The Ukrainian Forging the Future of Warfare Credit... Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times Skip to content Skip to site index Search & Section Navigation Account Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s 35-year-old defense minister, sees futuristic military technology as crucial to his country’s survival. By Andrew E. Kramer Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine May 15, 2026 As Ukraine’s 35-year-old defense minister strolled about in tennis shoes, jeans and a fleece, gazing at displays of his country’s latest crop of oddball weapons, he paused to eye one gigantic, ungainly new device. It was a drone with muscular carbon fiber arms stretching eight feet to each side, propellers the size of scythes, and a sprawl of wires, protruding antennas and Velcro straps. The drone substitutes for a 155-millimeter howitzer, carrying shells to targets and dropping them. “Can you make it bigger?” the minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, asked the drone’s developers during a rec...